Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson participated in a university-run online chat on Tuesday night where Dickson answered a variety of questions from where to get oysters in New Orleans (Manale’s) to how he saw the state of the Tulane football program (young). Dickson has been the focus of a lot of frustration from Green Wave fans unsatisfied with the results of the men’s basketball, baseball and football programs in recent years.

None of those programs have sent a team to an NCAA postseason since 2008 when the baseball team advanced to a NCAA regional.

The biggest hot button issue has been the on-campus stadium, something that has evoked criticism from neighbors to fans who think its 30,000-capacity is too small.

Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson, left, answered questions in an online chat Tuesday, including questions about the football program under first-year Coach Curtis Johnson.NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune archive

Lately fans have taken to twitter and email to express frustration with a variety of issues that Dickson addressed in the chat.

Many fans believed the stadium had no plans for expansion, would be built smaller than the 30,000-capacity Tulane announced in December and that it would have lights or was going to skimp on construction materials and finishes for the stadium – an issue that has caused a fervor of chatter on message boards and on www.nola.com/tulane.

Dickson said: “Of course (the stadium is) going to have lighting, which will be appropriate for HD television production. The lowering of the stadium did not decrease seating. It has a capacity of 30,000. It will be state of the art in terms of fan amenities, sight lines, club opportunities. It will have state of the art electronics, including video board and digital displays.”

Dickson said he expects the stadium to double or triple football revenue and offered this on the construction materials:

“It will be built of concrete, steel, brick and glass, all traditional stadium materials. We are building a concrete-based seating system that will include a solid base with seatbacks on the home (east) side. Specific information about materials, when available, will be posted on tulanestadium.com.”

As far as the school’s admission policies and the perception that Tulane cannot garner top football and basketball talent because of stingy admission policies, Dickson said:

“The NCAA has a sliding scale based on three things: ACT/SAT score, core curriculum and GPA. Universities determine their own standards within these broad guidelines. At Tulane we seek student-athletes who have a 960 SAT or 21 ACT, with a 2.5 GPA. We do have the latitude to admit 25 student-athletes per year who have an 820 SAT or 17 ACT. Generally, we do not use all of these exceptions. In order to help our student-athletes make their grades, we have a strong academic support system which just got stronger when we added 3 more academic counselors. After someone is admitted to Tulane and becomes part of our athletics family, we do everything we can to make sure the academic resources are there for anyone who needs or wants them.”

Fogelman Arena is undergoing a renovation, Dickson acknowledged in the chat, and one question he addressed was whether renovations to Fogelman Arena will alter the basketball programs’ home game schedule. Dickson responded:

“The construction schedule calls for phase one to be complete for the opening game Nov. 9. A second phase of the renovation will begin after the season ends.”

Another hot button issue has been what Tulane is doing to make itself appealing to “better” conferences.

“As you know, conference alignment is a shifting landscape and we continue to be involved in discussions about what is happening with each conference,” Dickson said. “If an opportunity arises that can have positive impact on Tulane, we would pursue further discussions. We think for the foreseeable future, there will be no significant realignment of conferences.”

As far as his feelings on the state of the football program – which drew major fire when it opened 2012 with a 0-5 start, Dickson said:

“It's a young program. It's a program going through transition that's been not helped by attrition and injuries. The key always is successful recruiting and this staff seems to be off to a good start through this year's first full signing class.”